France places $166M antitrust fine on Google over inconsistency in ad rules

France’s competition watchdog has slapped an antitrust fine on Google to the tune of €150M ($166M) over issues in the interpretation 0f its ad rules which the agency describes as opaque, difficult to understand, and inconsistent and according to TechCrunch that the tech giant had abused its dominant position in the online search advertising market.

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The decision was announced today after a multiple-year investigation into the activities of online advertisers in the EU.

The Watchdog has ordered Google to make public its procedure for developing rules that guide ads and what rules necessitate the deactivation of an Adsense account. The current position of the watchdog is that the current operating rules for Google’s ad platform, Google Ads, and for applying them are in “an unfair and random manner”.

A Google spokesman reacting to the announcement confirmed that the tech giant will appeal the decision. The company then proceeded to publish a lengthy blog post to bare its thought of the accusations and the fine itself.

The watchdog found that Google has redefined its ad rules several times in the past creating instability for some advertisers which leaves said advertisers in a state of economic and legal insecurity.

Google is responsible for 90% of searches in France and controls about 80% of all online advertising generated from search as contained in the watchdog’s report.

Explaining its decision in a press release the Autorité de la Concurrence writes [translated by Google Translate]:

[T]he French Competition Authority considers that the Google Ads operating rules imposed by Google on advertisers are established and applied under non-objective, non-transparent and discriminatory conditions. The opacity and lack of objectivity of these rules make it very difficult for advertisers to apply them, while Google has all the discretion to modify its interpretation of the rules in a way that is difficult to predict, and decide accordingly whether the sites comply with them or not. This allows Google to apply them in a discriminatory or inconsistent manner. This leads to damage both for advertisers and for search engine users.